QUITO RELOCATES ITS AIRPORT

QUITO, Ecuador 
Landing at Ecuador’s capital can be a white-knuckle affair. High altitude, a cramped runway and towering volcanos nearby make it one of Latin America’s most challenging airports for pilots. And the constant roar of the planes torments those on the ground as well.

That will change on Feb. 19 as Quito moves its airport to an agricultural setting 12 miles northeast of the city, joining other cities that have moved — or tried to move — planes farther from the people.

Mariscal Sucre airport sat amid cornfields when it was christened in 1960. Over the years, Quito grew dense around it, turning the airfield into a notoriously nerve-racking neighbor, with planes booming in and out from 5:45 a.m. until 2 a.m. without rest.

Over the course its life, Mariscal Sucre has seen 10 serious accidents. In 1984, a DC-8 owned by the company Aeca clipped some navigation aids on takeoff and plunged onto neighboring homes, killing 49 people. Fourteen years later, A Cubana de Aviacion Tupolev 154 failed on takeoff and slammed into the airport’s wall, killing 76.

Most accidents were what the industry calls “runway excursions” — as in running off the runway. They tend to plague urban airports with minimal margins for error.

In addition to the cramped runway and nearby mountains, which force a steep angle of approach, the airport sits at an elevation of nearly 8,700 feet, an oxygen-thin altitude that diminishes aircraft performance on takeoff and landing.

“You have to think ahead of the airplane a lot,” said Ivan Rivera, an American Airlines captain with experience flying into Quito. “You have to be aware that those mountains aren’t forgiving.”

The new airport at Tababela is built to handle 290 flights a day and has a runway 13,450 feet long. That’s nearly 3,300 feet longer than the runway at the soon-to-be shuttered airfield.